Work Text:
Art by @SoftTomatom
~
In hindsight, she’s pretty astounded she didn’t see it sooner. All the signs were there right in front of her, but she was so wrapped up in the chaos of her family and her father that she lost sight of the one constant in her life. In fact she didn’t lose sight of it, she drove it away.
Tom was stable, dependable, and the total opposite of her. In some ways, it was the latter that drew her to him in the first place. The world she was bred into was cutthroat and cold, and he was always so warm and safe. Like a Labrador retriever. He gave himself utterly to her, devoted himself entirely to loving her, which is why she’s all the more surprised that she didn’t notice the withdrawal. Didn’t notice that he was slowly dismantling his love for her and building it somewhere else.
It’s her own fault, of course, though she would never, ever admit it. She had grown too used to Tom being her dependable doormat. Too used to him always rolling over or sitting back to please her. She did love him. Or maybe, on reflection, she just loved to be loved by him. To prove that she could be loved.
She thought he would always love her, always forgive all the bullshit she put him through and always come back to her side. But she was wrong. Turns out there’s a limit to Tom’s love and she surpassed it a long time ago.
~
She tells herself it’s innocent at first because the concept of it being anything but is too absurd, too crazy, too devastating to even think about.
But she catches them one day, huddled close outside of a meeting room, conspiratorially. They’re planning something in hushed tones, Greg gesticulating enthusiastically, Tom watching his hands move. They haven’t seen her, she’s watching them through some glass partitions in a concealed spot where she had slowly come to a halt as soon as she saw Tom’s profile.
It’s not all that weird that they’re together. Greg is Tom’s assistant, and she often sees him trailing around after her husband like a lost sheep, but there is something that’s tugging at her chest, telling her not to look away.
When they talk they don’t break eye contact, she notices, and they’re standing so close. Tom is leaning up against a wall on his side and Greg is in front of him, stooping a little, leaning down into his space. There’s barely 6 inches between their faces but despite this they look so relaxed and comfortable with each other.
Shiv thinks absently that Greg can probably smell Tom’s cologne, his shampoo, even his laundry detergent when he’s that close. She knows this because she’s the one who’s usually within 6 inches of Tom. She should be the only one. But now it’s Greg, and their eyes are shining, and once the serious part of their conversation is over Tom is smiling.
She feels taken aback by it because there is something so raw and open about it. His eyes look glassy, like he’s beaming, and she realises she’s never seen him smile like that. She’s never been the one to make him smile like that. And Cousin Greg is smiling, too. The same glassy sort of doe-eyed shimmer to his big cow eyes.
She blinks, a little startled almost, when Tom suddenly reaches out to him and smooths the lapels down on Greg’s suit jacket, hands lingering on them for a moment, and Greg doesn’t move away. Just does that thing where he tries to tuck his hair over his ear even though it’s too short to really do that anymore.
She dismisses it as nothing, because it has to be nothing. Just Tom being Tom, he always was very touchy-feely like that. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it. So she shakes out her hair, tears her eyes away from them, and gets on with her day.
~
“Maybe we should go away somewhere,” she says to him one night, “Get away from it all, you know?”
Tom is sitting on their couch on his phone. In the window behind him she can see that he’s flicking between apps, occasionally landing on his messages and tapping out a text.
“Uhh,” he says, classic thinking expression pasted onto his face, clicking his tongue three times in thought, “Really? You want to get away?”
She makes a face at him, “Yeah, don’t you?”
He looks up from his phone to look at her, “Well. Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
Tom hums. He’s looking through her, not at her as she stands in front of him.
She licks her teeth, sighing, “You don’t want to.”
“It’s not that,” he says, “Of course not. Of course I want to. It’s just a bit risky, isn’t it?”
“Risky?“ she asks, frowning, “In what way?”
“With so much going on. What if you had to rush back because of the company? Because of Logan?”
“I’m sure they’d last a week without me, Tom.”
Tom nods, though he doesn’t look convinced, “Right.”
“Don’t worry about it. Forget I mentioned it,” she says, feigning amusement when really she’s furious. Shouldn’t he be more enthusiastic about this? He was always bugging her about re-visiting their honeymoon after their first one got cut short. Now that she thinks on it, she doesn’t remember exactly when he stopped asking about that.
“No, no. If… If you want to go somewhere then of course we’ll go.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” she says, striding into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. For the first time in a long time, Tom doesn’t follow her.
~
Shiv starts to wonder if maybe there’s something going on. Maybe Tom is seeing someone. Maybe that’s why he’s so absent lately, so distracted and distant.
The idea makes her feel hollow, even though it’s technically in sync with their agreement. The problem with their agreement, however, is that she had always operated on this unspoken clause where there were a set of rules for her and a set of rules for him. Her rules were that she could sleep with whoever she wanted. His rules were that he let her.
She didn’t like the idea of him hooking up with other people, not one bit. Tom was hers, and it was her expectation that he would sit idly by whilst she exercised her right to fraternise, never partaking himself. She needed him to always be there to come home to. She needed the stability of him.
She finds herself thinking about him with other women and feels sick. She feels possessive; she wants Tom all to herself, on her terms, so she starts to think about how she can put a stop to whatever he’s up to. Maybe if she pays him some extra special attention for a little while he’ll give up on whatever airhead he’s pursuing. He’ll realise that he loves her too much to bother with anyone else. It’s all a game, she thinks, she just needs to revise her tactics.
Her suspicions about an affair flare further whenever she’s alone with Greg. He can never quite look her in the eye, like he’s feeling guilty about something. So Shiv starts with him.
An opportunity presents itself when they’re alone together in the elevator, both on their way to Tom’s office. Just before they reach the right floor, she presses the hold button and turns to him.
“Hey, Greg.”
He swallows, big eyes flickering around, refusing to settle on her for longer than a second, “Hey, uhh… Shiv. Everything okay?”
“You handle Tom’s diary, right?”
Greg nods, swallowing, finally meeting her eyes, “Yeah, among other things, obviously—“
“So you make his appointments for him?”
“Appointments?” Greg questions. His cheeks are flushing a little. She decides to take the softly-softly approach.
“Yeah. Meetings, teeth-cleanings, dinner reservations…”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I tend to, uh, arrange that sort of thing. Insofar as is within my remit to do so…”
She arches an eyebrow at him. “Right. So, I was wondering if you could maybe help me out with a little information.”
Greg blinks, “Information?”
“It would just be really useful for me to know if he has any dates lined up…”
“Dates? Like… What sort of… What kind of a date?”
“You’re not in trouble,” she says, lightly, smiling pleasantly, “Tom and I are open, he can do what he wants, I’m just curious as to whether he’s seeing anybody right now. And, obviously, if he was, you’d be making those appointments, right?”
Greg still looks immeasurably guilty, which sort of throws Shiv for a loop. She figured his guilt was because he was hiding Tom’s affairs from her. She thought that if Greg knew that Tom was perfectly within his right to have those affairs it would make him relax a little. But he doesn’t. If anything, he seems even more tense.
Maybe he’s just worried Shiv is lying to him, trying to trick information out of him and inadvertently get Tom into trouble. To his credit, he would usually be right.
“Well,” he starts, inhaling a breath and exhaling it sharply, “He has a haircut booked Thursday afternoon.”
“Mhm.”
“And, uhh,” he looks upward, thinking, “I think maybe, like, a doctors appointment at the end of the month?”
Shiv waits, nodding encouragingly at Greg who doesn’t rise to it. She sighs.
“That’s it? Come on, Greg. You must know something.”
He shakes his head, smiling apologetically at her, lips pressed tightly together.
She holds eye contact with him as she reaches over to un-press the elevator hold button, barely even flinching as it lurches back into life.
He knows something, she’s sure of it. Why would he hide it? Out of delicacy to Tom? He doesn’t even fucking like Tom.
She folds her arms and leans back against the elevator wall, letting Greg exit first as soon as the doors open on their floor. She watches him take off at speed down the corridor and sighs. She will figure this out. She’s Siobhan Roy. She will get to the bottom of it.
~
“So what’s new with you?” She asks him over dinner. It’s one of those rare nights where they’re both home at the right time, so Shiv actually makes use of their private chef.
“Oh, you know. The usual. Not much. Squashing scandals, burning evidence, preparing for jail,” Tom says casually, sipping his wine, “Oh wait, no, that was last month.”
She smiles tightly and he looks a little sheepish.
“Just kidding. Of course. Nothing much new.”
“You sure about that?”
Tom pauses in the middle of eating to look at her, eyes scanning her face, “Pretty sure. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” she says, watching him right back, waiting for him to break, but he doesn’t, “You’re not seeing anybody then?”
Tom blinks at her, clearing his throat, “What, like a therapist?”
“You know what I mean, Tom.”
He puts down his cutlery, taking a breath and exhaling it slowly, “If I were, that would be alright, wouldn’t it… Given our arrangement.”
“Of course,” she says, stiffly, back straightening a little, “I’m just curious.”
He shrugs, “No, there’s nobody, really.”
“You can tell me, you know,” she says, in a voice she hopes is level and soothing, reaching out over the table to stroke her fingers over his knuckles, “I won’t be mad.”
He smiles a little tightly at her, nodding, “I know.” He takes a deep, loud breath in, effectively changing the subject, “Well. This was great, wasn’t it? It makes a nice change for us to be together like this.”
She withdraws her hand, “Sure, Tom. It’s nice.”
He stands and clears their plates away, and she figures that’s the conversation over. She’s not sure whether she believes him, but she decides to accept what Tom’s saying at face value. There’s little else she can really do.
But later that evening, something comes over her. She’s never been afraid to snoop if it suits her interests, she’s just never needed to with Tom before now. She’s never had any doubts about him. She’s never been suspicious about him. But now something has shifted and she just wants to know the truth. She knows he’s seeing someone, and there must be a reason he’s hiding it from her. All she wants to do is put a stop to it before it gets out of hand.
She grabs his phone when he’s asleep, moving silently out of their bedroom to pore through it in private on their balcony.
She checks his emails and calendar first for appointments. Nothing unusual looking, though an excess of meetings with Greg that have stupid titles. ‘Memo Monday :)’, ‘Thursday shakedown’, ‘Boys brunch breakout’ and a few recurring lunch meetings simply called ‘Lunch with Tomlette’ that Greg has put in. She clicks into it to see if there’s any notes, but there’s nothing. It’s just a recurring appointment Greg has invited Tom to. No fixed location. She rolls her eyes.
Shiv exits Outlook and tries a new approach, does a search for all the dating apps she can think of. She sighs when each one encourages no results.
Finally, she opens his messages, scrolls through looking for a name she doesn’t recognise. Something suspicious. She knows all the tricks so she looks for them but... There’s nothing. Nothing at all. It’s largely work related with a few spam texts thrown in.
Maybe he isn’t seeing anyone, she thinks. Maybe she has just broken him, somehow.
She scrolls up through his messages until she reaches the top. The most recent conversation is with Greg, and the message preview says ‘I know. That’s why…’.
She almost doesn’t click it, deeming it to be a useless endeavour because she can’t imagine they chat very much, but something inside her is telling her to look, and she’s never been one to ignore her instincts. So she does, figuring she has nothing to lose.
She scrolls up a ways to find the start of their chat and reads.
Tom, Tommy, Tomlette, Tomtomtommerson
Idiot.
:)
What are we doing then
What do you mean
This week! Friday! What’s the plan, batman
To save the citizens of New York from your terrible texts
Haha :)
But for real, are we going out this Friday ?
Of course, I’ve made plans already, don’t you worry about it, you leave it to Tom
Tommy Tomlette -egg emoji-
Cut it out
Haha
Shiv makes a face that she knows will give her wrinkles so she takes a deep breath to reset her expression. Nothing particularly suspicious, but she hadn’t realised that they text this much. This was all from three days ago and there’s a lot more since then.
Wuu2?
???
It means ‘what u up 2’
Why not just say that?
Wuu2 is quicker.
So wuu2
Meeting with the news anchors. Very boring.
Want me to get you out of there?
How are u going to do that? Cartwheel in through the glass and announce that there’s a fire?
I would not be averse to that if that’s what u needed from me
I need plenty from you
Shiv blinks at that. Again, it’s a bit odd, but… Tom is odd.
Your wish is my command etc
Maybe just bring me a coffee
-Running man emoji, coffee emoji, sparkle emoji-
They’re so lame, she thinks. It makes her think about the text conversations she has with Tom. They’re usually pretty to the point. She only really texts him when she needs him to do something for her.
Where shall we go for dinner tonight ?
How about that place we went to last month, the Thai with the tables out back in the courtyard
Sure. Can u book?
Yep yep yep
She had no idea they went out for dinner together, ever, but it sounds like it’s a regular thing. This chat is eye opening in a way she had never expected. Are they best friends or something? Tom doesn’t have friends, he only has Shiv, something that has always worked out in her favour. She doesn’t like that he’s close with someone else. It makes her feel paranoid and out of control.
I hope I wasn’t out of line tonight
Not at all
I meant it, though, Tom.
I know. It’s appreciated. Very much.
:)
Intriguing but vague. Too vague to learn anything from. She finally catches up to today. They were texting right up until just before Tom went to bed. She shuffles uncomfortably in her seat.
Bought a new suit for tomorrow night
Oh yeah?
Yep
Can’t wait to see it
What time are you picking me up?
Shall we say 9? I’ve made reservations at La Campagna. Figured we better eat first
Cool. Love it there.
I know. That’s why I booked it
Shiv blinks, then scrolls back up to read it all again. She’s sure that sometimes the conversation skips, like something has been deleted, and she wonders what on earth Tom might want to delete in a conversation with Cousin Greg, of all people.
All she discerns from this bizarre string of texts is that Tom doesn’t have a secret life with another woman, he has a secret life with Greg.
~
She sits on the information she’s gained for a long time. Mainly because she just figures that Tom and Greg are friends, and this is just what friends do. Shiv doesn’t have many normal relationships, so she doesn’t have anything to compare it to. She has to assume that that’s just how normal people talk. So she keeps it to herself. At least until a situation where she can use her knowledge to her advantage presents itself.
It’s weird, because they’re the last two people on earth she would expect to get on with each other, but she lets Tom have this one. He’s earned a friend, and she convinces herself that, if the need arose, she could crush Greg pretty easily, eliminating him should he become a problem.
It does give her cause to watch them more carefully, though. Out of interest, more than anything. It’s sort of jarring to see her husband so loose and comfortable with someone other than her. It’s like looking in through the glass at the zoo.
It’s hard to compare her relationship with Tom to his relationship with Greg. It feels foreign and unrecognisable. Her entire life has been a cat fight, a competition, a game that she strategises. Even with Tom she plays him, pushes him, manipulates him. It’s just normal for her. She figures everyone does it. Surely even Greg.
Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Maybe Greg is using Tom for something. Trying to butter him up for a better position. But the way they talk, it’s like neither of them have any motivations. No agenda. It’s bizarre.
She’s attending a gala, or a fundraiser, she forgets which, with Tom. She isn’t all that interested in these things, she just turns up when it’s required of her, and Logan has asked specifically that she comes to this one. She has to do a speech at some point, but it’s already been written for her, so she doesn’t have to think too hard about anything. It’s all just par for the course. Another day in the life.
They’re drinking champagne during the little pre-function they put on so guests can mingle. Tom’s in a suit and bow tie and he looks lovely, not that she’d ever tell him that. He complimented her outfit before they left, at least. He told her she always looks spectacular in bottle green, and she smiles because for a second her old reliable Tom is back in the room.
Then Greg materialises out of thin fucking air and Tom does that thing again. Like he just illuminates, shining so brightly at the sight of him that it makes Shiv frown.
“Hey, bud, you made it!” Tom says, clapping Greg on the back. He’s smiling, Greg’s smiling, everybody is smiling, even Shiv, except her smile is forced and polite.
“I didn’t know you were coming, Greg,” she says, looking him up and down. He looks very put together, for a change. Someone other than her might even say he looks handsome. Not to mention he’s standing up much straighter than usual. All of this she gathers together for safe keeping to ruminate on later.
“Uh, yeah, they actually invited my Grandpa but he never comes to these things, so I figured I’d be Ewan for a night.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, eyeing the two of them, “You’re lacking the wrinkles and general air of disgust at all the frivolous expenditure. Better work on that, Ewan.”
Greg smiles awkwardly, “Maybe I’ll start ranting about air pollution in New York, that oughta do it.”
And Tom laughs at that, too loud, and not even remotely forced. Shiv doesn’t laugh, just smiles politely, opens her mouth to say something cutting when her assistant taps her on the arm to let her know it’s time to do her speech.
Reluctantly she leaves them alone together, looking back at them over her shoulder as she’s lead away.
As soon as she’s gone they move closer together, conspiring again, blocking her out, and Tom’s eyes are reflecting the lights in the room as he suddenly becomes more animated and alive. He’s already forgotten about her, and she watches his hand reaching out, reaching out to Greg, but then there are people in the way and they’re lost to the crowds.
She catches sight of them again once she’s on stage, stares at them whilst everyone else stares at her, expectantly. They’re standing at the very back, leaning against the wall, talking quietly. Tom has always been her cheerleader, always watches her proudly, she wonders when that stopped. She feels angry, but she compartmentalises it for later. She has a job to do.
She reads her speech with a charming smile, and gets halfway down the page before she realises that her husband is on the move, slipping out of the doors at the back of the room, side by side with Greg, still deep in hushed conversation. She watches his hand touch the small of his back as they disappear around a corner and out of sight. She falters for a moment, takes a sip of ice water, then carries on, unfazed.
She can deal with this later.
~
“Where did you disappear off to earlier?” She asks him on the car ride home.
“Hm?”
He’s feigning ignorance.
“I saw you leaving during my speech. With Greg.”
“Oh yeah, bit of an emergency, that was all. Had to step out.”
“You and Greg are pretty close,” she muses, staring ahead, “It’s kind of weird. Like, the optics of that.”
He turns his head to look at her, frowning, “What? In what way?”
“You spend a lot of time with him. People notice that sort of thing. And disappearing during your wife’s speech? It looks bad, Tom. It looks weird.”
“I told you, it was an emergency, Shiv. Unavoidable.”
“What emergency?”
“Just… Bullshit. Work bullshit. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“It better not, Tom,” she says, “Because it makes me look like a fucking idiot when my own husband doesn’t stick around for me.”
They’re silent for the rest of the trip home and the entire way up to their apartment. She pours herself a drink when they get inside and sighs.
“Let’s just… Go to bed,” she says eventually, rubbing the back of her neck. Her shoulders are aching, she’s been tense all day. Tom seems to notice and gingerly squeezes them for her, albeit briefly.
“Actually, I’m…” he starts, swallowing tightly, “I’m heading out. Not feeling super tired, think I might take a walk.”
She turns to look at him, watches his hands fall back to his sides, limply, “Since when do you walk?”
He shrugs, “Figured I could give Mondale a walk around the block or something. Just need a bit of fresh air, you know?”
She nods, because that’s… Relatively feasible. They have a dog walker, but Tom does like to do things himself occasionally. She looks into his eyes and wraps her arms around herself. She’s suspicious but there’s nothing she can do about it right now. She needs to bide her time.
“Sure, whatever. Do whatever you want, Tom.”
He nods, kissing her on the cheek before retrieving Mondale’s lead and heading out with him, leaving her alone in their apartment. She allows herself a moment to feel hurt before shaking it off and going to bed.
~
She has a long weekend in DC that wraps up early, and when she would usually make the most of her alone time, she finds herself heading home.
She doesn’t tell Tom, she decides to surprise him. At least she tells herself that, but secretly she’s hoping to catch him in the act.
It’s about 9pm by the time she gets home, trying to enter their apartment as silently as possible. She hitches her weekend bag a little higher onto her shoulder as she pads quietly through the apartment, listening for signs of life. She’s starting to think nobody’s home when she hears quiet voices coming from the balcony.
She’s never been one to sneak around, never been afraid to make her presence known, never been one to shy away from a potentially awkward situation, but for once in her life she finds herself pressed flat to the wall next to the balcony door, open just a crack, listening.
She risks a look and sees Tom, relatively dressed up in dress shirt and braces, suit jacket in his hand. He’s with Greg, surprise surprise, who looks equally dressed up, and she wonders where they could possibly be going to warrant them looking like this.
They’re standing next to each other, elbows on the railings, looking out at the view, passing a joint back and forth between them. Her nose wrinkles at the idea. She always found pot pretty juvenile and pointless, but figures this is just another secret Tom keeps from her. Another one for the pile.
She catches them halfway through a conversation.
“—said it’s insane, like a proper nineties place.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” Tom asks, “What makes a club nineties themed?”
Greg shrugs, “The music, I guess? Ambience? General vibe? Sometimes there’s, uhh, foam.”
Tom exhales an incredulous sound, “Foam?”
“Yeah,” Greg says, “You never been to a foam party?”
Shiv peeks at them in the dark. They’ve stopped looking at the view, they’re looking at each other. Looking at each other and smiling. If it weren’t Tom and Greg, she’d almost say it all looks vaguely romantic. Every so often they pass the joint between them and their fingers touch and linger there. Something sinks in her stomach. Something she refuses to acknowledge.
“I don’t think I’m all that into foam, Greg. I don’t like mess.”
“Yeah, okay,” Greg says, pointedly with a grin, and Tom laughs, deep and rich, shoving Greg in the arm.
“Shut up, Greg, you audacious little weasel. Fuck you.”
Greg’s grinning, he looks smug, “I’m just saying—“
“Where else could we go? Somewhere without foam. Unless it’s champagne foam. And even then I don’t want it all over me.”
Greg looks at him then and Tom laughs again, shaking his head. Shiv feels like there’s context here she’s missing. She isn’t sure she wants to know.
“We could just see where we end up, maybe. Maybe after a few drinks you’ll be more in the mood for foam?”
Tom checks his watch, suddenly stands up straight, “Shit, we better get moving, table’s booked for 10.”
Shiv swallows, slips away out of sight into their bedroom, listens to them leave. Part of her wants to cling onto the logical, somewhat hopeful idea that Tom is just exercising his right to have a best friend. The other part feels vicious and jealous and can’t make sense of why Tom would need anyone else but her. A thought enters her mind for a moment but she refuses to let herself even consider it.
She goes to bed to wait for Tom, preparing herself for a fight, but Tom doesn’t come home, leaving her to wonder where he is and who he’s with until eventually she falls asleep.
~
“I mean, cards on the fucking table, Shiv,” Roman says, eyes sharp and ruthless behind his sunglasses, “You’re aware they’re fucking, right? Like you’re just wilfully fucking ignoring it? Right?”
Shiv wrinkles her nose, takes another sip of her drink, “Don’t be gross, Rome. That’s pretty fucked up. Even for you.”
They’re out for lunch on a private terrace, which is ridiculous because they don’t ‘do’ lunch. They’re not siblings who lunch, they’re siblings who club together at parties, bitching about the food and identifying the weak links in the crowd, bullying them tag-team style until they break.
But the whole Tom and Greg situation has got her feeling out of sorts, largely because it’s unknown territory for her. She has literally no point of reference, and nobody at all she can talk about this with. She doesn’t even like talking about it with Roman, but she needs to get it out of her head before she goes insane. All she asked was whether he thought their relationship — friendship — was a little odd.
“Oh, so, you’re in denial? Ouch. Got it. That’s gotta fucking suck. Husband’s run off to the circus to screw the tallest member of the freak show brigade, bit awkward—“
“Roman, seriously, cut it out, that’s not what’s happening. They’re just… Weird friends.”
“Weird friends who have recurring meet cutes and go on dinner dates and text all the time. It’s fucking… Messy, Shiv. Incestuous. I mean, can you even imagine it? How would they even fuck. How would that work? I kind of want to see it, just so I can pitch it to Ripley’s Believe it or Not—“
“Rome, I’m serious—“
“Is that show even still on the air?”
“Is it normal? Is this just how normal people have friends? Are we just fucked up?”
Roman scoffs, “Of course we’re fucked up, and let me tell you something else: it’s a fuckin’ miracle we have the level of self awareness required to know that about ourselves. We are fucked so far up that we’re basically in space.”
She pauses, letting herself feel some semblance of peace. They are fucked up. Their situation is unique. They don’t experience things the same way other people do. Maybe she’s overreacting.
“But… Even though we’re fucked up and floating around next to Neil Armstrong’s lost fucking moon boot… It is still fuckin weird, dude. Super fucking weird. Objectively speaking.” She looks at him, and he shrugs, smirking, “Definitely thought you knew they were doin’ it.”
She frowns, sitting back in her seat to think about what the fuck she’s going to do about all of this.
Hours later, once she’s had time to feel sufficiently riled up about the situation, she makes a decision. She decides that if Tom can’t tell her the truth, and if Greg can’t tell her the truth, then she needs to take more drastic action.
~
She does some digging around and hires a private investigator. It’s absurd, but it’s never been beneath her to use her wealth to whatever nefarious ends she sees fit. In her mind, she’s just paying a professional to do what she was already doing. It’s efficient and fits in perfectly with her lifestyle. The fact it could uncover something awful and damning is a little frightening, but she’s tired of not knowing what her own husband is up to.
She has them follow Tom for a few weeks with the intention of figuring out where he’s lying and where he’s telling the truth, then which lies are little and which are big.
She startles when she is discretely passed an envelope on her way out of the office one evening. It’s all very clandestine and dramatic and it makes her feel sort of sick that it’s come to this. Worse still because now she holds in her hands the key to everything. She knows that when she looks, she’ll have her answers, one way or another. She just isn’t sure if she’ll be able to stomach them.
Tom’s out for the evening, again, and she knows him well enough by now to feel confident that he’s not going to turn up unannounced any time soon, so she sits on the floor of her living room and opens the envelope. It’s predominantly photographs, notes, even a handful of transcripts. The guy she used was thorough, so she steels herself to go through it all, piece by piece.
Tuesday 15th, 1.05pm. A photograph of Tom and Greg walking out of the office, deep in conversation and heading towards Tom’s car and driver.
Same day, 1.47pm. A photograph of them arriving at a restaurant Shiv’s never even heard of. Tom’s hand is low at Greg’s back, guiding him into the building.
Same day, 7.38pm. A photograph of them in Tom’s office, taken from an adjacent building. Greg’s lying on Tom’s couch, Tom’s at his desk, typing. It seems innocent enough. Comfortable. Maybe more comfortable than she’s used to, but comfortable. Except it’s late, past finishing time, but Greg’s still there, fiddling with a Rubik’s cube idly, which makes Shiv wonder why he can’t do that in the comfort of his own home.
Wednesday 16th, 11pm. A photograph of them sitting in a restaurant, Greg picking at Tom’s plate with his fork, and Tom letting him. In fact he’s just watching Greg do it, smiling. It almost looks fond. There’s an ice bucket by the table, the neck of a champagne bottle sticking out of it. Shiv swallows tightly.
Friday 18th, 2.43am. A photograph of them in an alleyway. It’s pouring with rain and they’re laughing uncontrollably at something, both soaked through to the skin, no jackets, just their shirts, almost transparent in the deluge.
Shiv checks the notes. Apparently they’d just been thrown out of a club because Tom had knocked a half-drunk bottle of 1959 Dom Perignon off a mezzanine balcony. Miraculously, nobody was hurt, but they were quickly thrown out of the side doors and into the rain, no ifs or buts.
Another photograph, same night, 2.44am. Greg’s hands are in his hair, a look of disbelief on his face, and Tom has his fists in Greg’s shirt, like he’s physically shaking him. He’s grinning so broadly, so openly, as he stares up at him. They both are.
Another photograph, same night, 2.46am. They’re standing with their backs against the brick wall of the alleyway, looking at each other, catching their breath. Still smiling. Like two schoolboys who have been expelled, but it doesn’t matter because they’ve been expelled together. Let loose on the world to cause more havoc.
Shiv flicks through to the last photograph in this section. 2.48am. She blinks at it, blankly, totally frozen as something clams up in her throat, a tight, hot feeling welling in her chest.
The worst part is she remembers this night. She remembers Tom coming home, damp and crumpled, giving her some line about falling into a fountain. Except he didn’t smell of dirty water or chlorine, he smelled of a cologne she didn’t recognise. One he’d claimed was just new.
She looks at the photo of her husband and Greg, kissing. In the space of 2 minutes Greg has moved to press Tom into the wall, his hands cupping his jaw to tilt his head back. They’re soaked through, hair plastered to their foreheads, but neither of them care. Neither of them even seem to notice. Just kissing in an alleyway in the rain like it’s fucking normal. It’s overwhelming to look at, so she turns it over quickly, swallowing the saliva that pools in her mouth.
On the back are scribbled notes that explain that Tom went home with Greg before returning to their apartment a little after 5.30am.
She takes a deep breath and exhales it, trying to keep a handle on her temper. She can be so reactive when things don’t go her way and she usually ends up regretting it. Exploding without any thought just makes her look weak. But she should have seen this coming. It’s so incredibly obvious now, but she had refused to even entertain the idea. She can’t avoid it any longer, not when there’s evidence right in front of her. Tom is sleeping with Greg, and what’s worse is he looks happier than she’s ever seen him whilst doing it.
There are many more photographs of them together, in various places, on dates, looking doe-eyed and happy. Sometimes they’re close, sometimes they’re kissing, sometimes their fingers are brushing under tables or on street corners when they say goodbye. Sometimes it’s just blurry pictures of them in Greg’s apartment through gaps in the curtains, doing things she’d rather not think about.
There are many more notes explaining away all of Tom’s strange behaviours, all the times he disappeared on the pretence of a walk or a late night meeting, the little shopping bags that kept materialising around the place, empty and no receipt to be found.
The further she gets through it all, the more foolish she feels. They didn’t even try to hide it, not really. The way they look at each other, the way they touch each other. The way their eyes fucking sparkle. It’s all there. It’s always been there.
Essentially, Tom spends almost every waking moment that he isn’t with her with Greg. She finds herself wondering if they’re in love. If Greg can love Tom in a different way than she could. If he gives Tom a kind of love that he needs, that he doesn’t find with her. If she were being really, brutally honest with herself, she can almost understand why he did it. Why she wasn’t enough. Why she could never be enough. She can see all the ways she’d hurt him, expecting him to always come back to her.
She wonders if she had touched Tom more, he’d have touched Greg less. A tiny part of her floats the idea that this is all her fault, a product all of her own doing, but she swallows it. This isn’t her fault. This is all on Tom. 100%. He’s the one who couldn’t stomach their life together, their agreement. He’s the one who didn’t understand the rules of the game and didn’t bother to ask. He’s the one who’s fucking her cousin and single-handedly fucking everything up for the both of them in doing so.
She gathers everything up and shoves it back into the envelope, kicks it across the room away from her.
She’s going to kill him when she sees him. If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t fucking come back.
~
It’s less explosive than she expects, when it happens. She expected Tom to grovel, to apologise, to beg forgiveness. To tell her it was just a stupid fling and they can recover from this. She expects to be able to hold this over his head for the rest of their marriage until one day she unceremoniously and cruelly divorces him right when he thinks things are okay again. The long game. A petty revenge.
But Tom just looks resigned. He almost looks relieved, the tension leaving his shoulders for the first time in months as he stands in front of her. He doesn’t look afraid of her, of any of this.
He looks at all the photos she throws at him and swallows. At least he has the decency to look somewhat mortified that he’s been caught, but Shiv gets the sinking feeling that he feels bad that Shiv had to see it like this, so explicit and raw and undeniable, not about the fact he did it in the first place.
When she asks him why, he tells her it’s because he knows deep down that she never really loved him. He tells her it wasn’t just one single thing that pushed him away, it was everything. He tries to explain it using this weird analogy she can hardly make sense of.
“It’s like… It’s like if you strike a match, and you toss that match aside. Just one match is one match on the ground, it isn’t a big deal, but if you keep striking matches, the pile’s going to get bigger and bigger until you have this— This huge pile of matches. A real fucking fire hazard of matches, Shiv, and I have been burned, incinerated even, by the matches you have relentlessly tossed at me. I am basically scorched. Third degree, over here. Nothing fucking left.”
She just blinks at him, realises that Tom has been doing the exact same thing to her, but instead of matches it’s lies. Little lies, big lies, lie after lie after lie to keep all of this from her.
“What the fuck are you even saying?” She says anyway, not wanting him to have any satisfaction at all from this, “You never make any sense. Talk like a normal human being for once, Tom—“
“Oh, that’s rich. That’s rich, coming from you, coming from the least normal human being on the fucking planet.”
“Fuck you, I gave you everything. You would be nothing without me. You’d have nothing. You’ll have nothing without me, is that what you want?”
Tom looks at her for a long time, breathing steadily as he contemplates what she’s said. What she’s proposing: a life without her, a life without the Roys. Surely it’s unthinkable. For a moment she almost feels hopeful, like she could still yet win this.
“I’d rather have nothing with Greg, than everything with you,” he says, fiercely, like he’s willing her to disagree purely so that he can prove her utterly, utterly wrong.
She blinks at him, speechless, tears that will never fall prickling the corners of her eyes.
She thinks about the time on the beach. She thinks about Tom saying ‘I wonder if the sad I'd be without you would be less than the sad I get from being with you’ and it just makes sense. It makes sense that they would eventually land here. Tom choosing nothing over everything. It was inevitable.
That’s when she knows it’s truly over.
~
16 months later and it’s officially done with. Case closed. Siobhan Roy, divorced. Divorcee. She doesn’t fall apart because she’s better than that, but she does privately grieve the loss of Tom from her life. The sense of security he gave her and the way she always had somebody on her side, no matter what. Someone safe. Someone who loved her.
She realises, in time, that she didn’t love Tom right. They expected the wrong things from each other, and needed things the other just couldn’t give. She doesn’t think she can ever forgive them, but she does think eventually she has the capacity to move past it.
The last time she sees them, they’re standing in a meeting room, staring out of the window, taking in the view one last time. They’re moving out of the city, leaving it all behind, starting over somewhere fresh. Just the two of them. No barriers, nothing holding them back. Tom and Greg fully realised.
She watches them stand together, something curling in her stomach that feels like envy and rage and the deepest heartbreak. She watches the way Greg’s hand sheepishly reaches for Tom’s. Watches their fingers brush against each other slowly, reassuringly. Watches the lightness in them both, the lightness that she has always been incapable of possessing. She watches and then closes the door firmly on the husband she’s lost and the life she could have had if only she were bred for it.